


everywhere, always

by laireshi



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616, New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Avengers #29 spoilers, M/M, Time Travel, hickmanvengers, post NA#3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1643627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony isn’t sure what he expects. Pain, maybe. Death. Being lost in the time stream. There are many options, and none of them are pleasant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everywhere, always

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Avengers #29 and New Avengers #18 - tread carefully. 
> 
> This was supposed to be a fix-it.
> 
> (reposting this from [tumblr](http://laireshi.tumblr.com/post/85841193397/everywhere-always))

Tony enters the laboratory in Necropolis. He doesn't even know what he wants to do, except that he has to find another solution, he has to . . .

Hank takes in a surprised breath when he sees him. “Tony, what the hell –”

“Not now,” Tony gasps out. “I –”

He knows how he looks like. He can hardly walk; he's pretty sure his collarbone is broken, but doesn't care much for the pain, there's a still bleeding cut on his forehead, and his vision is swimming. None of it matters.

He has to find a way.

Hank is at his side in a blink, carefully stabilising him with a big hand at Tony's elbow. “You need a doctor, Tony,” he says.

“I'm fine,” Tony snaps.

Hank just shakes his head and steers him away, to the small med bay at the end of the room.

***

The time gem breaks.

The time gem is always breaking.

Tony isn't sure what he expects. Pain, maybe. Or nothing. Death. Being lost in the time stream. There are many options, and none of them are pleasant.

***

Steve is looking at him and he looks _shattered_.

“So it was all a lie,” he says.

Nothing was a lie, Tony thinks, nothing apart from the one thing that mattered. “It served its purpose,” he says, and Steve stumbles back as if hit.

Tony wants to reach out, and knows he can't –

For many reasons, he realises, for the first time noticing something apart from Steve's expression. The room is small and bare, as a cell, because it probably is one. Tony's hands are cuffed behind his back.

“I won't let you commit genocide,” Steve says.

“Does it matter, if I'm willing to do it anyway?” Tony replies.

“All a lie,” Steve repeats, and leaves, and Tony doesn't know what's happening.

***

He pushes Hank away, ignores the flare of pain in his arm. “I can do it, okay, just –”

“You look as if you went hand-to-hand with Hulk, Tony,” Hank says, his voice gentle, as if he was talking to a stubborn child.

Tony knows the questions will start as soon as Hank finishes taking care of him. He really should focus on other things, Tony thinks.

“Bruce was somewhere here, last I checked,” he quips.

“And you were in the Avengers Tower,” Hank replies seriously. “Can you take this shirt off?”

Tony nods, pulls it off over his head, trying to hide a wince. He doesn't look at himself, at the bruises that must be already forming, at the finger-shaped marks on his wrist that match Steve's hand.

***

The time gem is always breaking, never breaking, the shards are everywhere and nowhere at once –

The sky is red.

The other Earth is just over them, close, and –

Tony has his hand on the doomsday device, and Steve is looking at him, his eyes cold. “I won't let you do it.”

“It's not your choice.”

It's all been leading to this: to Steve looking at him as if he didn't know him anymore, to Tony, with the power to destroy another world, to destroy himself  – and it's all worth it, because that means Steve is still there, to hate him, and it's _right_.

Tony presses the button.

Steve hits him half a second too late, the shield breaking the armour, driving it in, and Tony tries not to yell as he feels his clavicle breaking.

The Earth over them _burns_.

***

Tony winces as Hank touches his collarbone, his fingers nimble, and he tuts. “Broken,” he says.

“I knew that,” Tony answers.

“I can stabilise it for now,” Hank says, and Tony wishes he would just leave him alone. He doesn't, of course. Tony doesn't know what to do, so he lets Hank move on, run his fingers over his wrist – “this will be all right” – and then start wiping blood off his face to get a better look at it.

He thinks he's in shock, maybe.

***

The thing about future is, it's not set in stone, and the shards are _everywhere_.

The sky is red.

The other Earth is just over them, close, and –

Tony reaches to the doomsday device, and Steve is looking at him, his eyes cold. “I won't let you do it.”

Steve moves, fast, faster then Tony can, and he closes his hand over Tony's wrist, pulls him away with the force that's still surprising.

“Steve, you can't,” Tony says.

“Really, Stark?”

They don't have time –

Tony tries to pull his hand out of Steve's grasp, and Steve doesn't let go.

“The right thing, Steve?”

Steve's serious face is the last thing he sees, and then the Earth shakes, and then there's nothing left.

***

Hank binds the bandage over Tony's shoulder, and moves to his wrist.

Tony isn't sure if it's even real. Nothing of it was, or maybe everything, and he has the injuries to show it, and –

“Tony,” Hank says. “You're shaking.”

He is, too. He needs a drink, he needs them to make him forget, he needs . . .

Their hands shine bright red for a moment and Hank curses.

They hear Namor's voice. “There'll be an incursion in thirty minutes.”

 _How_ , Tony thinks, even as he is vaguely grateful for the interruption.

Hank finishes dressing his wrist and takes a step back. “You don't look all right.”

“But there's an incursion, so, it's fine,” Tony says. “You can leave me. I'll take care of the Dyson sphere.”

Hank looks unsure, but he hurries to prepare the bombs they've built, and it's insane.

***

They're everywhere, always, even if some things shouldn't ever happen.

The sky is red.

The other Earth is just over them, close, and –

Steve is standing close to the doomsday device. He's crying.

Around them, everything is on fire. Tony wants to stand up, to activate the device and save the world –

He can't move. He can't breathe, really, and he looks down at himself and sees the RT light flickering.

Steve has his eyes on the other Earth, and something about him is _different_.

“All a lie?” he says.

“No,” Tony gasps out. Steve laughs.

He presses the button. The Earth over them burns.

Steve crumples to the ground.

***

Tony pulls on a Resilient t-shirt and doesn't think of what the company stands for. No more military funding, no more weapons, and here he is, preparing to use the Sun as a WMD –

Suddenly he knows what he has to do.

He has to – he has to stop it, has to wrestle the answers from Black Swan, whatever it takes.

Everything is possible, and he has to save the world, and he's betrayed Steve once and he wiped his mind so he didn't have to choose, and –

Black Swan held the answers. She had to.

***

The time gem is everywhere, and it's breaking in every point of time at once, and Tony is stumbling towards the Necropolis, alone, and nothing is real and everything is.

**Author's Note:**

> I really can't deal with feels. Thank you, Hickman.  
> I wrote some shorter things about A#29 too, [here](http://laireshi.tumblr.com/tagged/my-fic).


End file.
